Olympian Heights
by Britpacker
Summary: Trip learns something unexpected. Malcolm reveals something rather profound. Mild Tucker/Reed slash


Disclaimers and confessions: All hail Paramount, owners of the Star Trek universe. This is a short piece of fluff inspired by the fantastic London Olympics. Can we have them back again, please?

Olympian Heights

Commander Charles Tucker III, less formally known far beyond his immediate circle as Trip, stopped dead at the door of the cabin he shared with his lover. "Uh, Malcolm? Isn't that the Olympic opening ceremony?" he ventured, fascinated by the flashing images across the screen angled – unusually - toward their bed.

Propped up against the bulkhead by a stack of pillows Lieutenant Malcolm Reed – a.k.a_. _The Most Dangerous Man In Starfleet – rolled his eyes and flicked a sticky piece of toffee popcorn at the intruder. "No, it's the sodding Children's Channel. Of_ course _it is."

Unconcerned by the rude reception Tucker popped the treat into his mouth and sucked it noisily. "You hate sports," he stated.

"This isn't sport. It's the Olympics."

Strange conversations. Loving Malcolm Reed – and he did – involved wrapping an overtired brain around a lot of them. Still, no man should be asked to do it after twenty-two hundred hours and just off a double shift. "Isn't the Olympics about sport?" he wondered.

"Isn't that door supposed to be closed behind us at the end of the day?" Reed returned amiably before firing off another chewy missile. With a shrug the Southerner stepped further in, allowing the barrier to buzz shut, closeting them away from the rest of the crew.

"You got enough of that for the both of us?" he asked, casually retrieving the morsel from the floor. Reed waved to a giant bowl by his right hand.

"There's only tea or lemonade – some selfish bastard's finished the beer – but a box of shortbread arrived from Maddie this morning if you're hungry," he announced, shuffling with feigned reluctance to provide spectator space at his side. "You don't mind, do you? It's on in the mess if you'd sooner I buggered off and let you sleep…"

His aching body screamed one answer but Trip Tucker's mouth produced the opposite. "Have I missed much yet?" he drawled, leaning across the slighter man to plant the popcorn bowl smack in the middle of their perch. "An' what in hell is _that_ supposed to be?"

"A ship, apparently." The skeletal structure being heaved by undulating figures in blue capes with white sponges on their heads - a rather charmingly low-tech way of representing a rolling ocean in Reed's critical opinion – inched its way across the infield to the accompaniment of a pyrotechnic storm. "Island nations, love. Surrounded by the turbulent sea. My lot did the same kind of thing in '42."

"I remember that." So, Malcolm had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Olympic ceremonies too. Someday, Tucker promised himself, he'd find a subject on which the smartass Limey wasn't an expert.

All he really had to do was figure soccer's offside rule, knowing Malcolm's self-proclaimed indifference to the sport.

Which brought him around in a circle. "You don't watch sports. How come you're like a kid in a candy store over this?"

Absently smoothing the wrinkles left by sudden movement in the bedding, Reed blinked owlishly. "I'm watching the coverage with a bowl of snacks, not doing headstands in the halls," he said primly, the act somewhat spoiled by the smacking of his lips around a clump of popcorn pieces – and the fingers that held them to his mouth. "Anyway, I like the Olympics. They have _proper_ sports like Taekwondo and Judo, not your namby-pamby _all-fall-down_ footballers rolling around in agony because somebody's messed up their expensive hairdos. Wonder if the Japanese warblers are as annoying as ours were?"

"Looks like we're gonna find out." Of course. Fighting sports. He probably watched the shooters and archers as well. "This mean you'll let me watch some of the events?"

"As many as you want; as long as you've not developed a sudden interest in _soccer_." To the general American term for his homeland's national game was added an accent to match. Generously pushing the snack bowl into his partner's lap Reed snuggled closer, his dark head pillowing naturally against the blond's shoulder. "I helped out in '42, you know," he added out of nowhere. "As a volunteer."

"Really?" Mental calculation late at night had never been his strength, but so well did Trip Tucker know his man the subtraction was easy. "You'd have been – what, nineteen?"

"I told 'em twenty, but yes. For reasons best known to themselves the organisers set that as the minimum age for volunteering." Unrepentant in the face of his lover's mock outrage, Reed grinned. "It was a hoot. I did "meet and greet" at the airport for the Malaysian team, gave the official welcome speech on the way to the bus, even got access to the athletes' village; then I was on "traffic patrol" directing spectators around the main venues, showing screeching kids and harassed mothers to the bogs in the main stadium... I even got to steward the boxing finals. Got a bit teary-eyed when Jack Morgan won gold in the Flyweight and everyone started singing the National Anthem, actually. I'm sure it was the Yank he beat in the final."

Tucker was pretty sure he must've watched; after all, he'd watched every moment a combination of studies and relations would allow of those Games – but contented himself with a noncommittal grunt. "You're probably right, but weren't you in San Fran?"

"Cadets _are_ allowed out of the country during holidays, dear." He'd been shocked by the slipshod security checks which should have flagged up his massaged birth date; a lesson learned and applied with rigour to every situation Enterprise's Senior Tactical Officer had encountered since in his professional life. "They needed people with initiative and language skills, and anyway, Mad had already been involved, so I wasn't missing out for anything."

The exotic tableaux playing out on screen were forgotten. Almost overturning their bowl in his haste Tucker rolled onto his hip and goggled at the younger man. "She'd have been a kid, Malcolm! What could Maddie do?"

"Carry the Olympic flame past her school gates during the relay," Reed replied promptly, the laughter that bubbled through the words flaring like shooting stars through his grey-blue, dancing eyes. "The headmistress nominated her for the fundraising she'd done – cake sales and bike rides for service charities. It's the only time I ever saw Dad look proud of either of us when she came trotting toward us with the torch in her hand and thousands of people cheering."

A small harrumph shook his slender frame. "Course, she went and spoiled it by letting the next torchbearer give her a peck on the cheek," he remembered, unconsciously pressing himself closer to his partner's warmth. "Dad was _livid_ – practically dragged her off the road shouting about her being too young for that kind of carry-on. Mad burst into tears, poor mite, then Granddad started bawling Dad out – and bear in mind he was wearing his admiral's uniform. I felt as if the whole of London was staring at us."

Tight-throated, Tucker asked the obvious question the most tactful way he could. "Am I allowed to call your Dad an insensitive jerk?"

Reed grunted. "That's a fair translation of what Gran called him. _A blundering excuse for a parent_ was her term, I believe."

It was, in Trip Tucker's opinion, too kind a commentary on a father whose chief pleasure seemed to consist of making his kids' lives hell on every possible occasion. "He must've been proud to see you volunteerin'?" he suggested, not very hopefully.

"If he was, he never admitted it; but we were neck-deep in our _Starfleet versus Royal Navy _row at the time." The notion of paternal pride caused a furrow to appear between Reed's well-marked brows. Moving stealthily Tucker raised a fingertip to smooth it away. "I didn't care, though. It was an amazing two weeks."

"I'll bet." The 2142 Olympics had been among the most successful of the century, and if all the volunteers had been of Malcolm Reed's calibre Tucker could understand why. He wriggled a little, dropping a kiss against his man's prominent cheekbone. "I watched everything I could on TV. Heck, maybe I even saw you in the crowd."

"Maybe." Irrational as it was the thought sent a tingle down Reed's spine and he shifted to a more comfortable position, giving his neighbour a brilliant smile. "For the first time in my life I felt I was_ part_ of something, you know? As if I belonged to something greater than the sum of its parts. It was… intoxicating. I spent years wanting to feel like that again."

He looped both arms around his captivated partner, all the love and joy he felt at sharing that astonishing man's life shining in his face. As he stretched up for a lingering kiss that blotted the noise of fireworks erupting from the screen right out of both heads, Malcolm Reed whispered the deepest truth of his existence to a stunned Trip Tucker.

"And then I found you."


End file.
